Hen:Are we cool, or is this going to be awkward now? Because I’m an expert on awkward, but I’d just as soon not practice that with you.
Me:I vote let’s not be awkward. I missed texting you. You’re fun to talk to.
Hen:Aw, so are you. You make me laugh. Which is why I have to be careful not to answer your textswhile I’m trying to focus. Last time you made a joke I read while I was cutting, I ended up with a table leg an inch shorter than it was supposed to be.
Me:At least it was the table leg and not your finger?
Hen:Hah, fair point. And it gave me some material to play on my lathe with, so that was nice. I ended up with a really curvy…well, ok, a hunk of wood good for nothing in particular. But the decorative curves came out really nice. I might use them on something for real soon.
Thinking about Henry and curves made me think of the curve of his ass. It, too, was ‘really nice’, but his ass definitely had a use. It was for stroking and playing with. I closed my eyes, reminiscing about the soft texture of his skin topped with the coarseness of his body hair. Mmm.
And then I remembered that I had had my hands all over him and I’d fuckingrun out of his cabin. What kind of idiot…? I thumped myself in the forehead. I wouldn't be surprised if he was way too wary to let that happen again anytime soon. I’d certainly be suspicious of me.
Oh, it was my turn to talk. I was definitely not going to tell him what I was actually thinking. What else could I say…
Me:I’m glad you got to play around a little. I kind of have the impression you mostly work with purpose rather than experiment.
Hen:I do experiment a little as I work up my designs, but yeah, wood’s not cheap so I do a lot ofplaying on pieces of foam rather than actual wood. It felt nice to get to just work wood on the fly.
I couldn’t resist…
Me:Heh, you said ‘fly’.
Hen:[eyeroll emoji] How old are you again?
Me:Old enough to make sex jokes that have nothing to do with the conversation at hand!
Hen:So…fourteen. Got it.
Burn.
Me:So…what have you been up to this week without me bugging you every ten seconds?
Hen:Work, mostly. I’m almost done with my latest table. I also cleaned the whole house. I’m such an adult.
Had he been stress-cleaning? Because of me, maybe? I wasn’t going to ask that, but I did wonder. I knew when I was stressed, scrubbing the house gave me a feeling of control oversomething. I felt guilty all over again picturing Henry carefully wiping down his cabinets while feeling sad about my desertion.
Me:Adulting is overrated. Did you do anything fun?
Hen:Um, I spent a lot of time petting Curie? She even let me brush her, which she’s not usually good at staying still for. It was relaxing as hell.
That actually sounded…really nice. Was it weird that I missed Hen’s cat after meeting her once? It would definitely be weird to invite myself back to his house so I could pet her. And him. His hair was nice to pet, too.
God, I was weird.
Hen:What have you been up to?
Me:Honestly? Feeling guilty about the way I left you, mostly. I mean, I tried to work and all but my focus was crap. My own fault, obviously.
Hen:I thought I was supposed to be the anxious one. That’s what my doctor told me.
That was an unexpected, though not surprising, revelation. I’d wondered if Hen had a diagnosis of anxiety, and here he was coming out and saying he did. I couldn’t help following up on what he said in the most supportive way I could think of that wasn’t also intrusive:
Me:Heh. My sister is the anxious one in our family, but it’s possible I picked up the skill from her. Lots of years working with her on managing it.
Charlie wouldn’t blame me for throwing her just alittlebit under the bus. After all, she made no real secret of her condition, and it wasn’t like Hen and she had ever even met.
Hen:Your sister has anxiety?
